


If We Were Normal

by IWannaDoBadThingsWithYou237



Series: The Jyn/Cassian Parents AU [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cassian and Jyn love each other, Cassian has two children, F/M, Families of Choice, Family Bonding, Family Feels, M/M, Multiple Points of View, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 05:35:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13288086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IWannaDoBadThingsWithYou237/pseuds/IWannaDoBadThingsWithYou237
Summary: The first thing that Cassian Andor thinks about when he wakes up after Scarif is his daughters, the second thing is Jyn Erso and the third thing is that he would like Jyn Erso to meet them, to be a part of their lives and for the four of them to be a family.He tries to dismiss that as a delusion brought on by panic, drugs and adrenaline but as the weeks go by, as they turn into months and the rebels move and lose with each day. Cassian sees and wants more than he dares put into words. He does not believe Jyn wants the same thing.Alternatively, Jyn does not believe Cassian wants her or his children want her (I mean who would Erso?) they are both desperately in love with the other and it takes a separation, a run in with Darth Vader, three days with Han Solo and the work of a Princess, an eight year old and a five year old to get their act together.(Also known as the one where I did a rewrite-kinda of an earlier piece to please a dear friend and somehow I still ended up writing AU Cassian/Jyn)





	If We Were Normal

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, so here is another AU Cassian/Jyn that involves Daddy Cassian because I can never seem to stop writing that. A friend asked me over Christmas to write another AU Involving ESB so I did and here it is. 
> 
> This is the longest thing I have ever written and while I have tried to keep it as accurate as I can there might be some mistakes in the timeline and the story, If so I apologize this is just fiction and just fun to write. 
> 
> Couple of Points to make-Spelling and Grammar are not my strong suit and therefore any mistakes I do apologize for. I have tried hard with this story but I am not perfect. 
> 
> Also the name Lira is pronounced-LIE-RA so not to be confused with Jyn's mother
> 
> The planets that the rebels stay on before Hoth are taken from my own imagines, Naboo and Felucia both of which appeared in the Star Wars prequels
> 
> I will probably return to this fandom anyway but let me know what you think of this-nothing is mine but Emmy and Lira-and enjoy

Cassian 

Cassian’s first thought when he wakes up, eyes wincing at the bright light of the Med Bey is of his children, of his daughters. He hadn’t given them a thought during the desperate dash to get the ship, when he had fallen hitting every barrier on the way down and when he had been on the beach clutching Jyn to his chest.

He’d pushed the thought of them away- _He had too-_ and when he had been clutching Jyn to his chest he’d not allowed himself to think of the two motherless daughters in their cots at Yavin wondering if Papa was coming home.

 _‘Two daughters that might have a chance of growing up free from the Empire’_ He had told himself desperately fighting back tears. _‘They will understand one day’_ He had hoped that they would understand and not hate him.

But that was then and here he is now, every bone in his body aching, every muscle screaming in agony and there is a taste of sand and blood in his mouth that he would rather like to forget…but he is alive.

His second thought is of Jyn Erso. If he survived, then surely she must have as well?

He doesn’t have to go too far without finding out. Jyn is in the cot next to him, her face is cut, she’s hooked up to machines and droids so much so he cannot tell which is which and she is covered in patches of bacta, but she is alive and that does wonders for Cassian’s heart.

Now all he has to do is get to his children.

But before he can take one step a medi-droid stops him.

“Captain Andor” it says and it’s voice is all clinical, nothing like K’s at all-and doesn’t that send a stab of pain through him.

“Please stop”

Stop? His children need him like hell is he going to stop.

“I need to see my daughters” he says forcing himself to stand up but in hindsight that is a really bad idea. He sits down again as his vision almost goes black again and his ribs throb so painfully it feels like he cannot breathe.

The droid looks at him for a second and then speaks.

“I will see what I can do” it says finally.

Cassian sits back down on the bed trying to breathe through the light-headedness and closes his eyes. Jyn is alive. He is alive, he hopes to all the gods that the rest of his team are alive, that K was the only casualty. But Jyn is alive.

He wonders what the girls will make of this.

And that he knows presents him with another problem. Jyn does not know he is a father. Cassian is fiercely protective of his private life. He has gone from one committed relationship of nearly ten years to raising two children on his own and since Ara died in what was supposed to be a routine convoy nearly four years ago when his youngest couldn’t walk and talk and didn’t understand that Mamma was gone.

He doesn’t talk about his children too much of that he will admit but he finds himself surprised by how much he wants Jyn to meet them, to interact with them, he has long since discarded the thought of moving on, a combination of grief for the first woman who he had ever loved and his partner in more words than one and quiet frankly the belief that an incident such as the one on Scarif would kill him before he got a chance.

But he finds his eyes drifting to Jyn still asleep and he wants her to wake up so he can introduce her to his children.

And that quite frankly is both an exciting and dangerous thought that makes his heart do funny things.

But the door opens next and in comes the droid ushering in his daughters and Cassian finds that he doesn’t really care what happens in the next few minutes as long as he has his children in his sight and preferably his arms.

Emalia comes first. His eight year old, his brave girl comes first staggering slightly, Her dark hair is messy and there is a pillow mark on her face but she seems wide awake. Cassian wonders if she had ignored his instructions to get a good nights sleep and simply waited to see if he was coming back or if she would hear the worst news in the galaxy.

Following her by the hand is his little five year old Lira. Her hair was also loose and she was clutching her stuffed porg like it’s her lifeline.

His youngest has definitely been asleep and she’s half dead on her feet now but Cassian doesn’t care because his children are here and he is here and Jyn is here. Emalia stares at him with her wide eyes like she cannot believe that she is here and doesn’t that shatter what is left of his heart. That his eight year old daughter had spent the night sat up with her sister in order to be the strong one when someone came and broke the news that they were orphans.

“Darlings” he says opening his arms.

Lira moves almost instantly and with an effort that makes him smile something clicking in his chest when he sees his daughters again even though his ribs ache. Lira pulls herself onto the bed with an effort and then sits on his legs watching him.

“Papa” she says quietly.

“Yes darling” he says softly almost like he would a frightened animal. “Papa’s here”

Lira stared at him for a second longer and then moved with surprising speed up the cot so she was next to him. Cassian has to bit back his groan as she elbows him neatly in his still broken ribs but soon enough his daughter is tucked neatly under one arm around the blankets and is breathing into his chest.

Cassian presses a kiss into the mess of dark curls that really do need cutting before he turns to his other daughter who he knows is trying so hard to be brave.

“It’s ok Emmy” he says opening his other arm and biting down the whimper when his shoulder aches at the decision.

“Papa’s a bit banged up but he’ll live”

Emmy’s eyes fill with tears and then she looks down at her socked feet and then back up at him. Cassian feels his heart twinge pathetically again.

“I don’t want to hurt you” she says finally.

He smiles, Emmy is always more thoughtful, more serious than her sister, she thinks before she speaks and that is all her mother.

“My darling the only thing that hurts right now is that I don’t have a cuddle”

Emmy shoots him another look and then obviously decides to believe him. She crawls onto the bed with a lot more grace than her sister and settles herself on his other side curled under the blankets like her sister and her hand very firmly entangled in the jumper they must have given him once they saw to his chest on the Med-Bay.

Cassian meanwhile buries his face in his children’s hair. They smell of shampoo and motor oil for some reason (and he really doesn’t want to know what they were doing with motor oil) and…hope…

A part of him cannot believe that he almost gave that up and then a part of him knows that he would do it again and again if it gave these two little girls the chance at of a normal life free from the tyranny of the empire.

Before he knows what is happening however Lira is looking up at him. “Papa” she says her voice very serious “Do you want to hear a story?”

He has to blink back the hot tears that spring to his eyes.

“Yes darling” he says working his lips to form the words.

“I would like that very much”

And soon the three of them are giggling like nothing has happened. Like Cassian isn’t battered and bruised, like his children hadn’t almost become orphans, like they weren’t living on a military base gearing up for the war that would define them or destroy them, like they weren’t missing a mother and the woman that he had loved once upon a time ago.

“Whose that?” Emmy asks pointing at Jyn. Cassian dithers.

“That’s Jyn” he says finally. “She’s a friend of mine and when she wakes I want very much for you too meet her”

“Is she like Mamma?” Emmy asks and Cassian swears in his head because of all the traits Emmy had to get from him it had to be the odd occasional moment where she asks the questions that nobody-least of all him knows the answer too.

“I don’t know darling” he says finally.

Lira is asleep on his chest and Emmy lays her head down and Cassian breathes in the scent of his children and wonders again how he had thought that it was possible to leave _this._

 

 

 

 

Jyn

Cassian has children.

Cassian has two children.

Cassian has two daughters.

Jyn keeps telling herself this over and over as the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months. She sleeps through the annihilation of Alderaan, her father’s legacy finally put into action but a mild infection also sees her unconscious for it’s destruction something that when she hears about she turns her head to the side and cries for several minutes.

It was over then. She had done the one thing her father had asked of her, his legacy was destroyed and the Jedi were on the rise in the form of one Luke Skywalker.

She knows that she and Cassian are the only two to make if off the planet. Princess Leia herself stops by to tell her that not that she needed too. Jyn’s a little hazy on anything and everything that comes after clutching Cassian like he is the only thing that grounds her but she knew when she woke up that she and Cassian were alive. Leia thanks her for her service to the Rebellion and while Jyn is not a fighter-not in the way she thinks-she tells the other woman that she might stick around a bit.

Leia takes it for what it is and thankfully doesn’t press the wound.

Cassian comes by later looking bruised and battered and that’s when she finds out about his daughters. He tells her about them with a rather sheepish look on his face that does nothing to hide his love for them. Jyn can see it and she remembers once being on the other end of that kind of devotion.

Cassian tells her that he had been with a woman for a long time who had died leaving him with these children and Jyn doesn’t know what to say to that. She has never had anyone but…well…Cassian in her corner and she doesn’t know if that will change now he has children, she’s not sure if she wants it too or not and not for the first time she wishes she had someone to talk to.

They move from Yavin to Naboo a beautiful planet with dense jungle and green fields and lush flowers, it’s half loyal to the Empire half not and Jyn recovers there spending her time walking around and taking in the scenery in a way she never had time to do on…well…any planet that she remembered being on.

Her knee is still stiff, her arms still ache sometimes but one day she decides to get changed in the clothes Princess Leia brought her one time (dark blue pants and a red jumper that is so soft she just sinks into it) and forces on her boots and goes in search of proper food. That’s the one good thing she overhears about Naboo…is that there is fresh food available and the Queen pretends not to notice that they take what they want while they stay and regroup after the Death Star. Jyn reckons they might have months before the Empire regroups enough to find them-according to Leia half their forces are scattered across the galaxy and most are dead.

So she goes looking for food in the canteen, it’s mostly quiet, she’s learnt that most pilots eat while they work and most intelligence officers eat by themselves and everyone else seems to just do their own thing whenever they want. Jyn doesn’t understand it but her whole life has been one structure or another weather it be Saw or the Empire so she grabs a tray and thinks she might for once just go with it.

That’s when she hears the laughing. It’s Cassian’s low chuckle that she’s heard once or twice in mission briefings since they’ve returned and on the occasions he’s come to visit. They don’t talk about Scarif, the beach or the lift where they said so much but nothing at all. They don’t talk about the people they lost, they talk sometimes about Cassian’s children but despite the fact that he casually mentions that he wants her to meet them she never has.

She turns around and she sees him, there are two small children by his side, girls and she realises with a pang that these must be his daughters. She thinks one is about eight and her hair is forced back into a high ponytail, the other one is five with darker hair than her sister and her hair is plated tightly. It reminds Jyn of how her mother used to plat her hair more so she could keep it out of her face rather than any style. Her father she remembers with an acute pain could never manage to braid her hair quite as well and she started tying it back when she was with Saw because he wasn’t going to do it was he?

So instead she forces herself to look down at her eggs again and then back up. Cassian is listening to what one of his children are saying and she doesn’t know what to do.

Before she can make her escape however he looks up and sees her.

“Jyn” he calls half standing up, two pairs of brown eyes (uncannily like their fathers) stare at her and Jyn is suddenly very conscious of the fact that her hair is a mess and she is gaping like an idiot. Cassian smiles at her a much more gentler smile than she has ever seen him give before.

Cassian gestures to her to come over and really not sure if she has a choice anymore Jyn follows taking a seat on the edge of the table and wondering weather or not it would be rude to the children if she were to bolt.

Jyn forces a smile at him, well…really it’s not forced because this is Cassian and nothing she is learning is ever forced around him.

“I would like you to meet my girls” he points to the eight year old. “This is Emalia or Emmy, and this is Lira” he points to his five year old. Jyn nods at both of them with a small smile because what can she say?

“Girls this is Jyn Erso who was on Scarif with me when we rescued those plans”

She blinks because she didn’t think that Cassian would tell his children about Scarif but she manages a “Hello” to both of them, they are undeniably pretty girls with their father’s dark hair and eyes all wide in their faces.

Lira turns back to her eggs after a moment but Emalia or Emmy stares at her for a second longer and it’s really unnerving.

“Do you prefer Emmy or Emalia?” Jyn askes her. The little girl blinks as if she is surprised by Jyn asking. “Emmy” she says finally. “Papa only calls me Emalia if I’m in trouble or if were being attacked”

Cassian chokes on his eggs and Jyn has the strongest urge to both laugh and cry at the same time. This child shouldn’t know about being attacked let alone talk about it in a board tone but here they are. Jyn smiles at her instead. “I know a bit about being attacked myself” she says “But here I don’t use my blaster half as much as I think”

For some reason she decides to match the little girls dry tone with her own and for a second she can see a small smile before the unsureness is back.

“I want a blaster” Emmy says turning back to her eggs “But Papa says that he doesn’t need any grey hairs at his age”

Jyn catches Cassian eye. “You mean anymore” she corrects and she’s rewarded by a laugh that means more than she thinks it should and a spark in her stomach when she catches the warmth in Cassian’s eyes.

Oh shit she’s in trouble.

 

 

 

 

 

Cassian 

Soon Naboo is no longer safe, they spend a few months there and then they have to move. This is Jyn’s first evacuation and while they are not under attack the Queen makes it clear that soon they will be and she will put her people first.

So Cassian reluctantly packs up his daughters small belongings, their entire life it seems can be determined by two small bags that they can put on their back.

As an intelligence officer he has a higher evacuation clearance but his children are not the only ones on the base and both Princess Leia and her father once (in another life) made sure that the children were always on the first transport. Jyn as a regular fighter isn’t of a higher clearance but Cassian catches her as she is walking through the hallways her bag at her side and tells her quite firmly to get on his transport.

There are no seats on the transport so he finds a corner clutching the hands of his daughters that is relatively clean, with Jyn following them and sits down tucking Emmy at his side and Lira on his lap. Jyn curls her legs under her and sits there as they take to the sky and hyperspace.

They don’t know it but the whole rebellion escapes the Empire (or what is left of it) by ten seconds.

It takes two days to get to their intended destination. They avoid traffic in the skies and it takes a while for the rebellion to move anyway because of so many small convoys.

The children take turns sleeping in his lap wrapped in his jacket but Jyn stays awake and so does he.

Everytime they come across a ship Cassian finds himself tensing and he knows Jyn does too. Something about flying has always grated on him ever since Ara died at least not where he has control of the ship, he thinks it might have gotten worse after Scarif.

Jyn sits by him.

“Your children are a credit to you” she says finally once they are both asleep on the first day.

“Thank you” Cassian says with meaning because he does mean it. He loves his children. He thinks deep down he might love Jyn.

Kriff.

Jyn looks as if she has something to say but before she can Emmy sits up from where she has been curled in his side around his jacket and blinks herself wide awake. Cassian frowns to himself. This is the third time in two days that she has done this and he doesn’t understand why she keeps shaking herself awake.

He wonders if it might be nightmares but usually if either one of his girls has nightmares they will just pad into his cot and curl up with him. Never before has he seen them wake themselves up before the nightmares come-that is more something he would do and it shakes him to the very core that Emmy seems to have picked up the habit.

But now is not the time for these worries.

Now is the time to concentrate on his child.

“Hey Emmy” he says as she wakes up and looks around. “You cannot sleep?”

She shakes her head and buries her face in his chest.

“You know” Jyn says talking to the wall. “I don’t think you know this but when I was probably your sister’s age actually when I was younger I was living with my mamma and papa and one night they took me outside to see the stars. There was a meteor shower that night and the skies were filled with white lights that kept coming bathing us all in this soft glow, I used to sit there and name all the stars and imagine in each of them there was a different planet where people would have adventures”

Now she turns and stares at Emmy who is watching with wide eyes. The thought of people living in stars is probably something an active imagination like hers has thought of.

“Would you like to hear the story?”

Emmy pauses and then nods. Cassian tightens his hold on his daughters and leans back against the wall watching Jyn. He’s going to regret it when he stands up as his back-already still twinging with phantom aches is going to protest painfully when he forces himself to move but right now he has his daughters safe and sound and Jyn safe and sound as well.

Somehow, he thinks he can make it.

Emmy falls asleep listening to the story and Cassian spends a long time staring at Jyn and she spends a long time staring back the two of them locked in their own little world and Cassian has never felt so at home before and honestly it scares the hell out of him in a way the Empire never has.

He’s right about his back when he disembarks but Emmy takes Jyn’s offered hand (after Jyn offers it for a second) and he lifts Lira and the four of them disembark at their stop, the second planet that they will stay at (for six months before they flee again) Felucia.

 

 

 

 

 

Jyn

Jyn has never been to Felucia before. There is no animal life, but the entire planet is covered in lush flowers and it smells like fifty different things at once. Jyn cannot help but like the planet because she has never seen anything like this. They manage to repair the X-Wings that had been damaged after the Death Star, Han Solo the smuggler/hero is nearly killed by a passing bounty hunter and Jyn spends her entire time with no mission due to the fact that Princess Leia instructs her generals that the entire Alliance needs a break. They have won a major victory, they deserve some time. Also the more missions they do the more chance they are discovered.

Jyn doesn’t care because she can tell Cassian doesn’t. He seems to spend every waking hour with his daughters. Jyn learns surprising things every day. For example Cassian teaches his children how to read and write and he sets Emmy sums every day. He teaches them how to rewire an X-Wing and how to contact old Alliance codes. Jyn watches him and sees a wonderful father. She finds herself conflicted over how she feels about this because she is pretty sure she is falling in love with Captain…well Major now he’s been promoted…Cassian Andor.

For Jyn this is a strange feeling, this swoopy feeling she gets in her stomach, this blush that she feels like she cannot control, the way she finds she’s savouring his touches and his smiles so she can think back on them later. And the way that when she touches herself all she can think about is Cassian’s quick fingers, the scent of his skin and the way his accent would sound in her ears as she clung to him.

She’s fucked she knows that much.

But with Cassian comes his children. And Jyn is really not sure how she feels about that.

It’s not even like they were bad children that hated her for taking a place designed for their mother. It’s quite the opposite. Jyn finds herself spending more and more time with them, mealtimes are spent with the three of them, Emmy begs her for stories about her life with Saw and Lira begs for stories about stars and planets that she has never been too. Jyn waters them down obviously and she may on more than one occasion play herself up but most of the time she is the one telling the bedtime story. Cassian watching her from the corner with that warm look in his eye that makes her blush furiously.

Jyn doesn’t know how she feels about being part of this family that is slowly being created over the course of six months that they spend on the flower planet as Lira names it. She doesn’t know how she feels about the relationship with two little girls that had another mother, she doesn’t know how she feels about being a mother herself, the only thing she does know is that she is falling completely in love with their father, with them and their domestic little haven that is developing over time and she doesn’t know what she will do when she loses them. When she loses this.

Because she is Jyn Erso.

And she knows that one way or another, she will lose this.

Only this time, where losing her mother, her father, her friends and nearly her own life didn’t accomplish it, this time, she thinks it will kill her.

 

 

 

 

 

Cassian. 

Hoth is a different type of hell.

Hell is the only way Cassian can describe it.

His first reaction when he found out that was where they were going was that the Empire would never send Stormtroopers there because it was too cold. He doubts even Darth Vader could stand the cold.

Then he bemoans to himself (quietly) because his girls are going to be _unbearable._

“A snow planet” he says to Jyn as she sits in his room watching him sort out Emmy’s clothes from Lira. They are rather pressed for time. They have not been spotted yet but the Empire has released hundreds of probe droids throughout the galaxy and Cassian doesn’t have to be a intelligence officer to know that they will hit the warmer planets first.

Jyn smiles and it’s one of her more natural smiles that Cassian finds himself staring at a bit longer than necessary. Jyn doesn’t smile often but when she does it’s so light and natural that he finds himself staring at it far longer than what is appropriate.

“You don’t have two children” Cassian points out putting Lira’s Porg plush with Emmy’s red and white blanket that she refuses to sleep without not that she is doing much of that anyway.

Jyn follows his expression and understands in that strange way of hers just what he is thinking.

“Emmy still not sleeping?” she asks her tone light.

Cassian shakes his head sighing. Emmy had developed the rather worrying habit of waking up in the night and staring at the ceiling. Most nights Cassian finds himself waking anyway only to have to coax his daughter asleep again. He’s worried but he’s not sure how to bring this up with his more serious child who has in her own way become more withdrawn over time.

Jyn nods all too familiar with not sleeping, she doesn’t say anything because there’s nothing she can say…not really but when she speaks it’s with a rather pensive note to her tone as if she’s seriously thinking about the answer.

“Do you miss her? Your…err…the girls mother?”

Cassian doesn’t turn around because he doesn’t want to look at the woman he knows he is falling in love with (hard) when he talks about the one that he loved before (but not like this).

“My partner” he said very quietly “Ara…sometimes…” he says honestly.

That’s the truth, he does miss Ara, he misses her smile and the way she was with the girls, he misses having someone to talk to who understood what it was like when you went out on missions, how it hurt even more because you knew what you could be leaving behind. He misses the moments that he knows she’ll miss in her daughter’s lives and he misses the simple comradery that came when you had someone to sit with.

For a long time…before Jyn…he had been very lonely.

“Look” he says turning around to see Jyn watching him with a face as blank as stone.

“Me and Ara…it wasn’t…it wasn’t like love…it was close to it but we were both soldiers and we both put the job first, even when Emmy was born-by accident-Ara didn’t let it slow her down and…Lira…Lira…” he shrugs. “Both our girls were happy accidents but that doesn’t change the fact that it was for a long time just sex…even afterwards, it was like we were putting on a façade for the girls, had the war been won by now I think we wouldn’t be together, it was more about having someone at the end of the day rather than loving them. But yes, I miss her”

That’s the truth again. What he had with Ara, who he did care for deeply was not the same he felt for Jyn Erso he had known that the second he woke up after Scarif. But that didn’t mean that when he thought of her his heart still didn’t hurt just a little. For nearly ten years they had worked together, as teenagers, as soldiers, as rebels and as parents. It was hard to lose that and pretend that it didn’t mean anything. But he had done so.

While he might not have lost the great love of his life his girls had lost a mother and he had lost his partner in more ways than one of nearly ten years.

He didn’t expect it not to hurt.

Jyn doesn’t apologise for asking she just stares at him for a long while and then she speaks as if nothing had ever happened.

“So you think the girls will like the snow then?”

Cassian laughs, embraces the change of subject for all that it’s worth and hopes like hell Jyn doesn’t notice the way his hands are shaking.

Like he said. Hoth is hell.

 

 

 

 

 

Jyn 

Cassian is right, Hoth is hell.

The underground tunnels they build keep them warm but not hot and on more than one occasion they are bundling up even in their rooms under the covers.

But the cold is not hell. Jyn can deal with cold, Saw made sure of that and a lifetime of running from the Empire took care of her ability to survive unpredictable weather.

What is hell is that the tunnels do not have enough room for them to have one each-at least not most of the command. The pilots bunk together, the pathfinders, families bunk together and some foolish person (who Jyn is going to find and kill) has put her in with Cassian, Emmy and Lira.

There are two cots, Cassian just bundles his girls into one and then lies on the bed most nights not even bothering to kick of anything other than his boots and Jyn does the same. There’s nothing romantic about it, no grand lovemaking to make them dizzy and breathless, just good old fashioned body heat.

The problem is, is that within six weeks of being on the damn planet Jyn has gotten used to waking up when Lira does, early in the morning, with Cassian’s scent right next to her and Emmy brushing sleep out of her eyes.

And that was the worst thing she could possibly do in the entire world.

Because sooner of later this is going to be taken away from her.

It always does.

However Jyn does have one trick up her sleeve. One day as she is brushing out her hair she turns and digs in her bag.

“Hey Emmy I have a gift for you”

Emmy turns so fast at the word gift she nearly falls on top of her father who has just finished tying Lira’s hair off her face.

Jyn takes out the small practice blaster. It is the smallest that she could find and only shoots small stun blasts, enough to knock someone over but not hurt them. Jyn finds it in the box of weapons to be destroyed. It’s tiny and she knows it’s perfect.

She explains what it is to Emmy whose eyes grow impossibly wide and then without warning the girl throws her arms around Jyn like she’s going to drown without holding onto her.

It takes her a second of stunned silence before she can react.

She places her arms around Emmy in the way she remembers-like a phantom touch-her mother doing more than once. Her hand cups the back of the girls dark hair and it feels soft to her fingers, she wonders if this is what it feels like, being a mother, if this feeling of pleased warmth in your chest that you’ve brought a smile to a little girl’s face is something that your supposed to feel. She doesn’t think she has it in her to be a mother and she knows from how she feels about her own that once a mother is dead you never replaced her.

But that doesn’t mean Jyn doesn’t have this insane thought that she might one day be one.

Kriff.

Emmy pulls back “Thank you Jyn” she says and she looks more alive than she has in days. Jyn doesn’t dare look at Cassian.

“It’s a practice stun one” she says to Emmy “It won’t hurt people but it’s still not a toy”

Emmy nods and then Cassian speaks for the first time.

“And don’t think you can use that thing all over the base. You use it when either me or Jyn are with you and if I catch you using it on your sister then I will take it off you understand?”

“Yes Papa” Emmy says examining the blaster in detail as if it holds the answers to the world for her.

Jyn shoots a look at Cassian, he smiles at her and the smile is enough that it takes her breath away.

Kriff. Kriff. Kriff.

 

 

 

 

 

Cassian 

Cassian is in love.

He’s doomed.

They stay on Hoth for another few months-not nearly as long as Yavin but more than Naboo. Emmy places the blaster next to her cot under his careful supervision and manages to sleep through the night again so he manages to relax a little. Lira begins to read a new book under his supervision her reading becoming a lot better and despite the fact that he now knows the feel of Jyn’s body against his own in a rather more intimate way and the fact that the cold makes his bones and muscles ache even more (because bacta could only do so much) he finds himself relaxing. Any thoughts of missions are gone, they need a base where they can hide from the Empire long enough before they can do that but he thinks Hoth might be that base.

Perhaps they could run the base from here?

Of course as soon as he thinks that he finds out he has to begin the evacuation?

He goes and finds Jyn when he runs into the Princes who tells him in the tone that has his spine straightening out of habit, that they are evacuating this afternoon but due to the Empire coming with increasing speed the first transport will have nothing but civilians on it before they move to the Alliance’s officers and personal.

Cassian knows what that means. He has to be separated from his children for a time.

This has happened only once before, when they came to Yavin. The skies had been so choppy with Star Destroyers that they had to split up, make each transport as innocent as possible least they be boarded and even Imperial Officers didn’t think twice of a ship should it have children on it.

But gods Cassian doesn’t like it. He hates it in fact. His girls should be with him when they are evacuated he knows and hoping the first transport does not attract Vader’s interest because Luke Skywalker (who is currently residing in a bacta tank himself) is not on it is not a very good hope.

He nods however because experience has told him there is no point in arguing with the Alliance once a decision has been reached. Instead he goes in search of his two little demons and after speaking with an officer he learns that ‘Seargent Erso’ had taken them outside to play in the snow.

He doesn’t have to go long to find them. Jyn has set Emmy up with what looks like a large pile of snow and has her shooting at it in all different angles pretending it’s a Stormtrooper. Cassian’s not sure in a real battle a Stormtrooper would stand that still as an eight year old runs around it screaming and giggling as she shoots tiny beams at it but Emmy is grinning and jumping and looking more like a kid again and Cassian finds himself watching from the shadows-the one thing he had worried about was that when living with the Alliance the girls would lose their childhoods like he had at the age of six coming home from school one day to see his home in ruins.

He watches as Emmy laughs and screams as Jyn claps whenever she actually hits something when something wet hits his knees. Lira is grinning at him having thrown snow at him.

“Papa” she says and when he opens his arms for a hug she happily runs to him. Emmy does to carefully handing over her blaster to Jyn and Cassian hugs his daughters to him wondering when it will be that he no longer gets these hugs because his girls get to old or to jaded to believe a hug from Papa solves everything.

“Hello darlings” he says and before he’s let go of them Emmy is speaking “Did you see me Papa? I was shooting all of Jyn’s targets” Her voice is filled with pride and Cassian smiles at her.

“I saw darling I saw. Why don’t you show me while your sister goes and gets more snow for you, I think that trooper you were shooting isn’t going to last for much longer”

Immediately they both scamper off and he takes a seat next to the box Jyn is sat on thankfully not covered in snow.

She smiles at him when he sits down and he smiles back and the two of them stare longer at each other than what should be necessary.

Jyn turns away first and stares out at the snow.

“When are we evacuating?” she asks and she keeps both her voice and her face light.

“Within the hour” he says finally forcing his own voice to work.

“They are…evacuating the children and civilians alongside medical personal first” he says finally “Before us”

Jyn turns to stare at him, then the girls then him again in quick submission. He sees her bit her lip as she thinks over this.

“Ah” she says finally.

Cassian snorts.

“But the girls will be fine” Jyn says to him. “Aren’t they used to this?”

“They shouldn’t be used to this” Cassian hisses angry though at what he’s not sure.

Jyn doesn’t let it faze her.

“No” she says finally. “They shouldn’t, but they are, so there’s no use in crying over it, all that matters is that your children get safely to the rendezvous point. We can pick things up from there”

He notes that she says ‘We’ and his heart skips a beat.

“So your sticking around then?” he asks. “The rebellion convert Jyn Erso?”

Jyn laughs once.

“Not the cause” she says finally. “Luke Skywalker might be the last of the Jedi or he might be the beginning, but I don’t want to die for him. I’m here for the people I care about and nothing more”

It’s on the tip of Cassian’s tongue to ask her whose those people are but he doesn’t want to spoil this moment, one of the last glorious moments of peace that he has. Instead he turned to see his girls running around throwing snow at each other and decided not to comment on the fact that he and Jyn’s hands were almost touching.

 

 

 

 

 

Emmy 

Emalia Ara Andor is not bothered by an evacuation. Not anymore. This is the forth one that she can remember, and she finds it a little bit like schooling, something that has to be done before she can enjoy herself. She watches Papa pack up her and Lira’s bags, they have a rucksack they carry, they live light though Papa makes sure that she and her sister want for nothing.

She doesn’t particularly like evacuations without her father but Emmy has done them more than once. She tucks her and Lira away in a corner and she waits there until they disembark and then she sits next to the hanger bay and they wait until Papa arrives.

But this time is different.

Papa goes on missions but the last time he went on one Emmy knows he should have died and that thought turns her blood cold because Emmy might be able to look after Lira on her own for a short amount of time but she is in no way, shape or form prepared to do it forever.

She’s not that big of a girl no matter what Papa says and the thought of losing him the way they lost Mamma makes her breath catch in her throat. She remembers sitting up that night that Papa was out saving the plans or whatever it was and she remembers refusing to go to sleep, waiting up to see if she had to be the strong one forever. She remembers how terrifying it was and now whenever she goes to sleep she finds herself waking up in the middle of the night terrified that he’s gone and she’s alone again.

Emmy doesn’t remember much about how Mamma died. She remembers being woken in the night by the sound of hushed talking. The King, the kind King whose name she cannot remember had been talking to her father who had looked away when he had seen her by the door. It had been the King of Alderaan that had tucked her back into bed and had smoothed her hair down as her sister had slept in the cot. And it was Papa who had told her in the morning red eyed that Mamma was dead and never coming back.

“But I will never leave you my darling” he had whispered.

But he almost had hadn’t he?

And that is why Emmy doesn’t sleep anymore, why she is tired all the time, why she wants her blaster by her, why she wants Jyn to stay…

Jyn isn’t Mamma, but Jyn makes Papa smile, Jyn makes Emmy feel safe, Papa doesn’t leave when Jyn is here either she notices. And if Jyn is here then Emmy doesn’t have to be as strong. Emmy might have not known her long but she knows that if something were to happen Jyn would stay and look after them.

She can feel it.

But if Emmy is going to be strong she’s going to need her blaster.

Papa had kissed and hugged them as they boarded the first transport. His hugs lasted a long time and his eyes were bright when he promised to see them soon and that they had to be good and strong until he could find them.

Emmy feels sick, that was how he had looked before he had nearly died. She takes Lira’s hand though as Jyn waves them goodbye and takes her to a droid in the corner to be processed and then realises something. She’s forgotten her blaster.

She’s not leaving without it.

She turns Lira around. “I need you to go and play with some friends while I go get my blaster”

“But Papa said not to leave” Lira says. Emmy nods “I need my blaster” she stresses. “Look just get processed and I’ll be back soon ok? I promise, even if I don’t get on this transport I’ll get on another and you can be safe with the droids and your friends”

Lira looks doubtful but nods and hugs her. Emmy watches her go and in her own little five year old way get completely distracted by the nearest holo.

Then she’s down the ramp and into the base weaving around people until she’s back in their empty room. It doesn’t take long to find her blaster, it’s half hidden under the bed where she must have knocked it off the small table, she picks it up, places it in her backpack and starts running.

The transport is already gone, the X wings are gone.

Emmy stamps her booted foot on the snowy ground.

“Typical” she says to herself. And then she goes and finds another transport.

 

 

 

 

 

Jyn 

Cassian is gone.

The second the girls have gone he goes in the Intelligence officers transport. It’s half calculation, half desperation. Jyn knows intelligence officers are worth ten of the ground fighters and Cass is desperate to get to his children. She doesn’t mind waiting and she tells him that. He looks worried but less so because Jyn has always managed to take care of herself.

Except right now Princess Leia is glued to the command room, Han Solo is shouting at her to leave and Jyn so very desperately wants her to go because until the Princess leaves Jyn cannot follow them to the last transport. She had been tasked with making sure the command got on the shuttle and quite frankly she never wants this job again-watching Han and the Princess battle out their sexual tension makes her long for a drink and something to throw.

The door behind them opens and Jyn’s hands go to her blaster as another shock rocks the whole building.

“Jyn” comes a voice and Jyn turns around her blood turning to ice. Leia stops arguing, C3PO stops bemoaning about the situation and even Han turns around.

It’s Emmy, she’s carrying her backpack and her blaster and she’s as white as Jyn knows she herself is but she’s resolute. She takes one look at Jyn climbs over the wreckage that was once a beam of wood and throws herself into Jyn’s arms. And Jyn hugs her to her hip despite the fact that the girl is heavy unable to contain herself.

“Emmy what the hell are you doing? Why are you not on the transport? Where’s Lira?”

“Lira’s already there, I had to go back for my blaster and then I got lost and I couldn’t find anyone so I came here to hide but now you’re here. Did Papa leave?”

“Yes” Jyn says smoothing down Emmy’s hair and noticing the relief that one word gives her. She grits her teeth, the first transport will have arrived through hyperspace by now and Cassian’s won’t be far behind. If he only finds one child on board Jyn knows he’s going to be beside himself. She turns to the Princess just as the command start bellowing ‘ _Imperial Troops have entered the base’_

“Ok we have to leave Princess now” she shouts. The Princess looks horribly conflicted but her eyes are soft and Han Solo grabs her arm.

“We need to go” he murmurs.

Finally, Princess Leia concurs and the four of them are off along with the droid.

Jyn drops Emmy to the floor and then grips her hand. “Do not let go of my hand and make sure to keep up” she says and then she starts running Emmy clinging on.

They make it down a corridor and then an almighty rumble hits them. Jyn swears as ice comes crashing down the exit route. Han pushes the Princess to the floor and Jyn skids to a halt turns and throws herself in front of Emmy who screams to.

They are undoubtedly trapped.

Han Solo pushes himself to his feet and looks around he seems to make a decision and he grabs the Princess by the arm.

“Command this is Solo, I have the Princess, Seargent Erso and a little girl, let it take off without you I’ll get them out on the Falcon”

And then they are running again.

They make it up the ramp as the fighting begins, Han runs to the cockpit, Princess Leia and the wookie follow him and the droid trundles to the control centre. Jyn takes Emmy and goes to the table in the main ship, straps her in and then wraps her arms around the trembling girl because she’s not entirely sure if Solo is going to do this. This ship has been a mess since the Death Star and two run-ins with the Star Fleet have not helped.

But soon enough she feels them take off and then there off the planet and into the sky and Jyn unbuckles Emmy completely prepared to yell at her for scaring her, Cassian, Lira and by now considering Cass probably half of the rebel Alliance.

“What the hell were you thinking? Coming back?”

“I’m sorry” Emmy wails and then she bursts into tears, huge great hacking sobs. “I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know if Papa was safe, I couldn’t stand to wait all alone for someone to come and tell me he’s dead, I’m not that strong Jyn I’m not. I didn’t know what to do”

And with that she starts sobbing in earnest and Jyn feels like complete and utter shit.

She knows a bit about what Emmy is feeling. She had cried herself to sleep for the first year that she had been with Saw and then had spent the entirety of the first five years she was with him thinking and praying desperately that her father would come back. She knows more than she cares to admit about trying to pretend that she’s strong when inside all she wants is someone to hug her.

She reaches for Emmy and the girl leans her head on her shoulder. Jyn hugs her back. Emmy is an easy girl to love and Jyn refuses to see a child cry anymore and not try and comfort them. Saw wouldn’t try and comfort her when she was a child and as she got older she had simply trained herself not to cry. Any form of expressing her emotions in her childhood had gone a long time ago.

And anyhow children shouldn’t have to be strong regardless of what their parents do for a living.

“I know” she says gently into the girls hair. “I know, Emmy I know, I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter as soon as we make the jump to hyperspace then we can get back to your sister and Papa”

Emmy nods.

There is movement by the door and she turns to see the Princess who to her credit dithers immediately as if she is loath to interrupt.

“Sorry” she says and more to the point she sounds like she means it. Jyn nods at her.

“We are having trouble getting into hyperspace” she says with slightly gritted teeth and Jyn takes that to mean that she and Han Solo have spent the past ten minutes they have been up in the air having another one of their infamous fights about weather or not he can take this heap of metal and fly it to the rendezvous point.

“You might want to buckle in, there are Star Destroyers coming after us. Han is trying to outmanoeuvre us but-“

Whatever she was going to say was cut off when there was an almighty blast that sent all three of them skidding across the small space. Jyn picked herself up as her hip groaned in protest. The Princess staggered to the corner of the table and Emmy who had been forced forwards onto the floor staggered upright unhooking her bag and placing it on the chair.

“Something hit us” Jyn said. She knew the difference between blaster fire and something else, she still remembers Jedha and the way the rocks that had once been buildings fell on top of the ship. She remembers Bodhi’s wide eyed look of horror and the way her hands had shook even when they were safe and through hyperspace.

Princess Leia forces herself to her feet and runs in the direction of the cockpit. Emmy sits up and then stands and runs after her and Jyn follows. They crash into the cockpit and Jyn has the good sense to drag Emmy into a chair half on her lap as she sees what they’ve sailed straight into.

An asteroid field.

Oh for the love of…

Another one hits them.

“Han get up here”

The sound of running feet and then Han Solo is in the cockpit, throws himself into the seat and then starts flying them around the asteroids like his life depends on it.

Considering half the Imperial Fleet is following them Jyn hopes he knows what he’s doing. Suddenly she’s very glad Cassian’s not here with them, she has a fleeting thought of what he would say to this and she wraps both her arms around Emmy tight as another duck sends them all crashing into each other.

Finally Han says they can stop in a crater on one of the bigger rocks. Both C3PO and the Princess look like Solo’s lost his mind and Jyn couldn’t blame them. However, he managed to land the ship in one piece and only when he did, did Emmy slid of Jyn’s lap and then was promptly sick all over Han Solo’s shoes.

He looked very much like he wanted to yell but two glares from the Princess and Jyn stopped him and he let out a distressed sort of whimper and then turned and left the cockpit, Chewie and C3PO following him. The Princess sighed. “I can clean this up” she said smiling, “Why don’t you take her and get her a drink, I’m pretty sure Han has some flying sickness tablets somewhere in the med-bay”

Jyn nods and takes Emmy by the hand. She doesn’t for a second think it’s flying sickness but in the past hour and a half depending the girl has been evacuated from a base, lost her father, been hunted, been shot at and narrowly avoided death via an asteroid field.

Emmy drinks a little from the water Jyn finds.

“I’m sorry” she says again but Jyn shrugs.

“Nothing to feel sorry about” she says finally.

“Do you think we will survive this?” Emmy asks finally after she has drank her water, washed the taste of sick out of her mouth and had something to eat.

“I do” Jyn says firmly because she cannot believe anything else.

“Besides we have too” she says smiling. “Imagine how much trouble we will both be with your father should something happen to us”

That does generate a small giggle.

“Jyn” Emmy says finally. Jyn turns to her as Emmy looks at her.

“I’m glad Papa found you”

Oh Kriff she’s in trouble.

“I am too” she says and it’s genuine. She is glad that the alliance found her, that Cassian came back for her when she was crying over her father’s body, that he held her when they thought they were going to die. That he introduced her to his daughters.

She’s happy for all of it.

It’s the first time in a long time that she can remember being happy like this.

Gods she hopes Cassian will forgive her for this.

But there is a movement at the door and she turns and sees the Princess. “Something’s outside the cave.” Jyn grabs her blaster and the oxygen mask ready to follow her and Han but turns at the last minute.

“Emmy stay here with C3PO and make sure he doesn’t do anything”

She turns around just in time to hear the droid splutter.

“You know sometimes I just don’t understand human behaviour Miss Andor”

“I know” she hears Emmy reply “Sometimes neither do I”

The cave is murky with smoke and the ground is hard but not hard all at the same time. This is not the exterior of an asteroid Jyn is sure and she can tell that despite the things floating around they should leave now and take their chances with a half-repaired ship, three star destroyers and an asteroid rather than she would in whatever the hell this is. This is not a cave-not like the ones she knows.

She forces herself back on the ship, back to Emmy before Han and Princess Leia come crashing back into the ship screaming something about committees. This, Jyn thinks scathingly, is hardly the time for a row.

Emmy has already rushed for the cockpit and even as Jyn runs to follow her the girl has climbed over one of the seats and is watching them escape with wide eyes and…shit…are those teeth?

“Monsters” Emmy says finally and the Princess turns to look at her. “We landed a ship in a monsters mouth…everyone is going to be envious of that”

Han Solo laughs once. “Good thinking kid”

“That or there’ll wonder how stupid you were not knowing what the hell you landed in” Jyn says. The Princess laughs. Han Solo scowls.

 

 

 

 

 

Wedge (An Interlude) 

Luke is still not at the rendezvous point. Wedge thinks he might kill him when he finds him.

Since the Death Star he and Luke are…developing…no that’s not the right word…they are engaged in a relationship. Or Wedge thinks that’s the right word. They slept together most nights for warmth, for companionship and for something else and he doesn’t know anyone who does that. Well...comfort is one thing, many people in this rebellion fall into bed with the others, many form attachments and relationships but he’s honestly not sure if someone gets what he and Luke have. The need to be close to each other but the fear that gets in the way of that.

Well theirs Leia and Han but neither one of them are here.

And…well he supposes Andor and Erso, but she’s not here and Wedge doesn’t know if he truly has the balls to ask Andor about whatever he has with Erso, not now anyway. The Death Star was relatively easy compared to the mood Andor is in now.

Wedge doesn’t understand much of it but he knows Andor’s got two children and he knows only one of them made it off Hoth on a transport. The other one is currently with Erso somewhere if Han’s last transmission was to be believed. Their on the Millennium Falcon with Leia but Draven has grounded Andor from finding them and the man now spends all his time focusing on either glowering at any officer that can stop him and spending time with his youngest daughter.

By the time he’s checked on his X-Wing-for the third time that day he turns to see Andor storming towards him. The man looks like hell, he’s barely slept, has barely changed his clothes and there seems to be an aura of despair around him that makes Wedge feel sympathy.

“I need a part for the droid I’m re-programming” he snaps. Wedge hands him the one he’s pointing to.

“No new transmits from Han?” he asks though he knows the answer already.

“No” Andor states and for a second his face almost crumples but he manages to pull it together rapidly. Wedge honestly feels his heart break for the man even as he tries not to think about Luke. Luke might be out there missing but Luke is not an innocent eight year old whose only crime is that she has a famous father in the rebellion.

“You know it might just be Leia trying to maintain their cover until they find us. It doesn’t mean anything”

Andor scrubs a hand over his face looking exhausted.

“I know” he says finally.

Wedge wants to ask him does he love Erso, because their relationships are too similar, if Andor loves Erso the way he thinks that he loves Luke then he is in serious trouble and Andor might be the only one who understands.

But the man looks so tired and so defeated that Wedge cannot find it in him to ask and instead he lets Andor go back to the droid he’s programming in a vain attempt to not worry himself sick over the people he loves.

The same way Wedge is doing right now.

When he eventually finds Luke he is going to kill him.

 

 

 

 

 

Jyn 

She gets Emmy to a cot in the hanger of the ship and wraps her up as the adrenaline finally wears off and she falls asleep. Jyn wonders if she ever looked that peaceful but then she remembers that she was raised partially by a man who spent most of his waking hours wondering when the Empire was going to come after him and then by a man who was constantly prepared for battle with said Empire.

She wonders if she should try and sleep herself. There seems to be some plan. A friend of Han Solo’s and a city in the clouds. Jyn wants to sleep it away but she’s honestly not sure if she can. She wants to lay her head down next to this little girl and only wake up when she sees Cassian again.

She thinks that if she sees him again she might tell him that she loves him. She might lose this…Emmy, Lira, him. But she will have done so being truthful. Sometimes when she can still taste the sand from Scarif in her mouth she wonders that what was the point of that-of that battle-of that stand and of losing everyone who came with her if she shouldn’t be honest with herself.

There is movement at the door and she turns to see the Princess standing there. Jyn stares at her and she’s suddenly very aware that the two of them are almost the same age. Princess Leia looks as exhausted as Jyn feels and Jyn remembers with a sick feeling that she too had lost her father and it had been because of the invention that Jyn’s own Papa had been responsible for.

“I didn’t mean to intrude it’s just…” she shook her head and then sat on the bunk and opened what looked like a canteen. She took a very un-princess like swig and passed it to Jyn.

“Corellian rum” she said finally. “Han Solo, the gift that never stops giving.”

Jyn laughed took it and relished the burn that the rum gave. God that stuff was good. She took another swig of it and then passed it back.

“Thank you your Highness”

The Princess rolled her eyes.

“Oh no not you too. My name is Leia”

“Sure Leia…my name is Jyn”

Leia took another swig. “Oh I know who you are” she says. Jyn pretends that she doesn’t hear an accusation in the voice but in all honestly she cannot pinpoint it. Most people when they learn who she is…who her father is don’t mention it because of Scarif but Leia lost her entire planet, her home, her family and was nearly killed herself because of those plans so Jyn isn’t sure what to do about it.

“You know my father never authorised any rebel to assassinate yours” she says staring into the rum. Jyn feels a pang of agony somewhere inside of her, the little girl that misses her father so much screaming in pain at the mention of his death.

“And mine never wanted the Death Star to destroy any planet” she said finally.

Leia nodded and handed her back the rum. “I know” she says quietly.

They sit there the ghost of their father’s hanging between them before Leia speaks again.

“Do you love Captain Andor? I don’t mean to pry but…”

And Jyn gets it. Leia is half in love with Han Solo and terrified of admitting it. She is in love with Cassian-she knows that know-might have took her many months both before and after Scarif to admit it-but she understands what it is like to love someone and not have a clue how to tell them.

“Yes I do” she says finally. Emmy is asleep so it’s not like she’s going to here.

“And you love Han Solo” she says finally. Han Solo is in the cockpit so there not in danger of him overhearing. Leia regards her for a second and then nods. Jyn shrugs a little and Leia laughs sadly at the thought of them two heroes of the Resistance and so helplessly confused over their feelings.

“Han says this Lando person has no love of the Empire so we should be safe. Once I can ascertain he’s right I’ll get them to set up a transmission to the alliance-a coded one so Andor can speak to you and his daughter”

Jyn nods. She is utterly exhausted, every bone in her body is spent and she feels almost a hundred years old but the thought of hearing Cassian’s voice makes her smile.

“You should get some sleep” Leia says quietly taking another swig of rum and Jyn nods. “So should you” she points out. Leia nods but doesn’t move. Jyn takes that to mean that Leia will not be sleeping until she is sure that they are safe.

Tonight though is not the moment to worry about that. Jyn kicks of her boots, her jacket and pulls her hair loose from it’s bun, and slides into the bunk next to Emmy. She manages to dislodge the blaster from the small of her back.

“Wake me when we land” is all she says and she distinctly hears Leia mutter something before she turns and walks out the door. But Jyn finally falls asleep and when she does it’s with those damn eyes, Emmy’s eyes, Cassian’s eyes at the forefront of her mind again.

 

 

 

 

 

Emmy 

Emmy awakes to see Jyn asleep in the bunk next to her. They are still flying and more to the point she has still not seen or spoken to her Papa and it must be what? Three days now? It’s hard to tell when your flying because there is no sun…at least not this side of the galaxy.

And more to the point Jyn is blocking the entrance to the fresher.

Carefully she climbs around Jyn (a lifetime of sharing bunks with her sister) and she forces herself to the fresher. She washes her face with cold water and she uses the toilet and then she debates what to do. The whole ship is quiet.

Emmy decides to go to the cockpit. Perhaps now she can get a decent seat.

Han Solo is fast asleep in the cockpit, the ships drifting on auto piolet and Emmy can only hope that they are nowhere near the Empire. She pokes Han Solo in the side. He leaps awake shouting something about how the _‘goods were under the table’_ and Emmy tries to be stern when he looks around and sees her-like Jyn and the Princess but she cannot stop herself from giggling.

“Oh” he says. “It’s you, well…hop into the chair now I’m awake I can do some flying”

Emmy hopes into the co-piolets chair. Her legs dangle of the edge of it. It’s hard she thinks to be strong when your legs dangle of the ground.

“How long until we land?”

“Ah an hour or so kid”

“Then I can speak to Papa, once the transmission’s fixed”

Han Solo shoots her a look. “You miss him?”

She nods. “And my sister, I only left the transport to get my blaster because I couldn’t let it go without it, suppose something like Scarif happens again”

Han Solo shoots her a look-she supposes he doesn’t really know what happened with Scarif or perhaps he does-she only knows what she’s been able to glean about Rouge One from hiding in corners and that doesn’t seem to do anything.

“And Erso? She what…your Dad’s…er…”

“He’s in love with her” Emmy says casually. She’s had months to think on this and she thinks about how she feels. She doesn’t want to admit it but she sometimes struggles to remember a life with Mamma. It’s never bothered her before and it’s not like she doesn’t miss her dreadfully but since Papa almost died-since Jyn came along and she saw Papa smile again she thinks that perhaps it might not be so bad being a family of four again.

Of course she’s eight and it’s really not her call but Emmy’s not stupid. The last kid that called her that got his nose broke, she got grounded because she had to be disciplined but Papa made cake or found cake or whatever because it was a good shot and as Draven says Papa is incurable-whatever that means.

Han nods. “You know” he says leaning back into his seat. “You’re a lot smarter than he realises aren’t you”

Emmy rolls her eyes.

“I’m glad someone finally gets it” she says finally.

Han Solo starts laughing.

-

The city in the clouds is beautiful. It’s all pink and perfect and Emmy is not a pink fan mind you, (unlike Lira) but she has to admit that the sunset is beautiful and she is very glad to be on solid ground.

Han has a talk with a tall man in a blue cloak who hugs Chewie eyes C3PO with amusement and kisses the Princess’s hand.

Then his eyes alight on her and Jyn.

“Well who do we have here?”

“Jyn Erso” Jyn says in a rather board tone. Emmy doesn’t know why. She likes the man on sight.

“Emalia Andor”

(She doesn’t like him that much-Emmy is the name gifted to friends)

“Pleased to meet you Jyn Erso” he says kissing Jyn’s hand who looks very much like she wants to hit him instead.

And then Lando-something gets on one knee and kisses her hand.

“And very pleased to meet you Emalia Andor”

Emmy giggles. Han Solo looks furious.

 

 

 

 

Leia 

 

Leia’s had a feeling that something’s been off since they arrived and when Lando opens the door and she sees Darth Vader standing there she’s not surprised. Angry yes, but not surprised.

Han’s hand finds hers and Leia turns. Jyn is white to the lips but resolute and her first instinct is to clutch Emalia’s shoulders. Major Andor’s daughter for the most part looks valiantly like a little girl who is terrified but doing her best to hide it and Leia feels nothing but pride towards the girl mingled with her own terror. They are rebels, her, Han, Jyn. They signed up for death when they joined the rebellion. Emalia has done nothing.

“Han Solo, Princess, Jyn Erso and Emalia Andor” Darth Vader drawls. “How delightful”

Kriff, Kriff, Kriff.

Loosely translated. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Darth Vader gives another sigh. Or a breath she’s never sure with that mask.

“Calrissian take the girl back your quarters and keep her there until I send for her. I want to talk to the woman that helped Skywalker destroy the Death Star and the rebels that made it happen”

Jyn doesn’t flinch. Instead she bends down and turns to Emalia. Leia doesn’t here much of what she says but the girl goes with Lando after shooting one last look of anguish at Jyn who turns and straightens her back the minute the door closes. Jyn she thinks-might be in a worse state than she or Han.

The door shoots behind them, Han grips her hand, she finds Jyn’s and the three of them wait to here weather or not they will die.

 

 

 

 

Emmy

Emmy does not sit quietly. She is locked in she knows that and mostly alone but she does not sit. She paces up and down the small room, she puts her ear to the wall and wonders if she can imagine screams.

Lando had wanted to take her somewhere safe but the stormtrooper changes his mind halfway there and she is shoved into an underground room with a fan in the ceiling. She grips the straps of her backpack and reaches through the clothes and the blanket until she finds her blaster. It’s not much-she’s suddenly very aware that it’s not much but this is why she went back for it. So she could have something…

She wants Papa. She really wants Papa.

She also wants to cry. A few tears escape as she curls into the corner of the wall as the sirens start wailing and it hurts her ears and the door opens again.

It’s Chewie though. The wookie bangs on the wall until the sirens stop and Emmy looks around her knees.

“Chewie” she says wiping her eyes. “What are we going to do?”

Chewie who is halfway through repairing C3PO pats her on the head and nearly knocks her to the floor again.

She scrambles up as they drag Han Solo in looking exhausted and beaten and bruised and Chewie places him on a metal slab. Emmy comes closer to him and when he sees her standing there he manages a small smile.

“Hey kiddo, they didn’t hurt you did they?”

Emmy shakes her head as the door opens and Leia is thrown in. she moves straight to Han but one hand comes out and wraps itself around Emmy’s shoulders as the door opens and Jyn is thrown in.

“Jyn!” she shouts but the Princess moves first. “Stay here” she says and then she’s at Jyn’s side pulling her up into a standing position.

Jyn physically looks unharmed but like Han she looks like she is in great pain. However, she manages a small smile when she sees Emmy who suddenly wants to cry again. She collapses against a wall as Lando comes in.

She raises her blaster but Jyn’s hand pushes it down again as Chewie roars.

“Listen” Lando says. “Leia, Chewie and Emalia are staying here”

“Han and Jyn?” Leia snaps.

“Vader wants Jyn and Han’s going to the bounty hunter”

“Vader wants us all dead” Leia snaps.

“Vader doesn’t want you at all, he wants someone called…Skywalker?”

Emmy doesn’t miss the look between Leia and Han.

“I am going with Jyn” she says finally. Lando looks at her.

Jyn shakes her head. “No you are not” she says. She looks at Lando. “Is he going to let you realise her the alliance”

He shakes his head. “He wants some man…Andor…wants him as badly as he wants you and I think he intends to send out a transmission”

“Fuck” Jyn says sitting up.

“Papa knows a trap when he sees one” Emmy points out. Jyn gives a hollow laugh.

“Somehow kiddo I don’t think that will stop him…though if he knows what’s good for him he won’t come after me”

Emmy stares at her throughout the conversation Lando and Han are having and then the troopers come in. A part of her wants to see Papa again-so much-but if this is a trap then she doesn’t want it.

She doesn’t think she’d make a very good rebel.

 

 

 

 

 

Jyn

Every bone in her body is aching. Vader had used the force over and over on her until she was in so much pain she couldn’t tell who was who. She might have at some point hallucinated Cassian but she knows why. She destroyed…well…she’s both the reason and the daughter of the reason why the damn Death Star got destroyed.

She knows she’s walking to an execution.

If Cassian comes after her though she’s going to find a way to stay alive until she can kill him.

She is not worth orphaning two children over.

Emmy is doing very well considering. She walks up the ramp with her head held high and her dark gaze wide as she takes in what is happening. Jyn’s only regret is that she cannot get this girl back to her father…well…not telling Cassian about how she feels about him is up there as well but this might be the big one. Cassian would die willingly for his children and she doesn’t want him doing the same for her.

Han is put into carbon freeze. Jyn is half leaning on Chewie her leg throbbing in a sort of phantom pain and Emmy pressed into her side. Both of them flinch when he slams back to the floor encased in carbonite. Leia looks like her heart has been ripped from her chest.

She thinks what it would be like if it was Cassian in Han’s place and she has to look away. Jyn Erso is not a woman to be overcome by a sentimental moment but the thought of Cassian in Han’s place is enough to make her blink back tears. She wants to see him again. Before…

Before she dies.

She remembers Scarif, certain bits she doesn’t but she remembers that soft look in his eyes, the joy that they had managed to do _something_ to end the Empire, her own private joy that she had managed to fulfil her father’s last wishes and then the fact that for the first time in nearly fifteen years she would be reunited with her parents.

But she remembers what Cassian had said.

_“Your father would be proud of you”_

If she was going to die she would remember that. If Lando could keep Emmy safe until the garrison at this place lifted…if Cassian could get to his daughter then…

Then Jyn thinks she could die peacefully.

“Calrissian” comes that cold voice. She pulls herself out of her thoughts. “Take the Princess, Erso, the Wookie and Cassian Andor’s daughter to my ship”

And just like that Jyn feels the earth fall out from under her.

She doesn’t pause to think how he knows that Emmy is Cassian’s daughter but like hell is taking her without a fight. She knows that Vader will use Emmy to get to the last surviving rebel of Rouge One. The one thing she was counting on was Cassian not doing anything suicidal by going after her because of his children.

Now there is really no hope.

Emmy’s mask went, Jyn shot a look at her and realised that for once the eight year old child (and she was a child wasn’t she?) looked absolutely terrified.

There was no point in resisting. Lando looked horrified but they were marched down a corridor, marched away from Luke Skywalker’s insistent shooting and Leia’s screaming to warn him that this was a trap.

And there was no hope.

At least, not until Lando Calrissian pulled off one of the most brilliant cons that Jyn has ever seen.

And coming from an ex-con artist that’s saying something.

 

 

 

 

 

Leia. 

Luke is safely in the med-bay. She has finally got Jyn to sit down because there is something about the woman’s expression that doesn’t sit well with Leia and the girl…Emmy is…Emmy is shaking like a leaf in one corner of the cockpit. Lando had all but thrown himself into the…Han’s seat…and Chewie was attempting to navigate the choppy skies that came after the rather rapid and incredibly panicked jump to hyperspace.

For a second she had thought that Vader would take them.

For a second she thought that she would lose Luke as well as Han.

She took a deep breath and forced herself not to think of him.

Instead she turned to Emalia Andor.

“Emmy” she says quietly. “You know we are safe now”

She didn’t see much of the girl while they were running for their lives shooting their way out of Lando’s city. She didn’t see much of her when she was shooting her anger and pain out. She imagined the girl had stayed close to Jyn who had ran diligently her way out of the city.

Now Jyn was lying down having she imagined been tortured mentally if not physically, Han was gone, Luke was incapacitated in more ways than one and she had to pull herself together. Her mother had once told her royalty was not allowed the option of falling apart whenever they were feeling like it.

All Leia wanted to do was fall apart but by all the gods she wasn’t going to.

Emmy looked at her with those wide eyes and Leia got the impression that if they didn’t make it to the resistance soon-to Cassian Andor then this little girl was going to lose what molecule of composure she had left.

And wasn’t that a kick in the teeth? Since when did children have to pretend that they weren’t scared of Imperial troops?

Andor, she thinks, is a good father, is a good rebel, a good solider and more importantly one of those few people that she can trust. She wants to get his child back to him, she wants to get Jyn back to him.

Privately she wondered whether he would stay and see this through.

(She hopes so)

“I know” Emalia Andor says finally. “Can we fly faster please Princess. I really want to see my Papa”

Leia nods not trusting herself to speak. Right now she would give all she had to be able to see hers.

 

 

 

 

 

Emmy 

They dock at the base. Jyn is standing much better now, she seems to have recovered…well…Emmy’s not sure if that’s the right word but Jyn smiles at her as the droids disembark, as Leia disembarks with Luke Skywalker leaning on her (now there is someone who looks terrible).

Lando Calrissian offers Jyn his arm but she looks at him funny and instead he opens the door for them so they can leave the Falcon and enter the ship carrying the Alliance members and…Papa…

Gods she wants to see him so badly it hurts. She wants him to hold her and promise her that nothing like this will ever happen again (even though she knows deep down he cannot)

She wants to feel…like she can sleep again without wondering if he’s going to die without telling them…without wondering if his last words are going to be something simple that she’ll forget.

It’s the only way she can describe how she feels.

She’s doesn’t want to be brave anymore.

Just for once she would like to be the baby.

Jyn pats her on the arm and bends down to her level gritting her teeth. Emmy doesn’t know what Vader did to Jyn but she figures it must be bad because Jyn looks very pale.

“I think you should tell your Papa how your feeling Emmy” she says finally.

Seriously, does this woman read minds.

“I think you should tell him because he’ll want to know. Besides while what you did was very brave you put yourself in danger and the one thing that scares your Papa more than anything in the galaxy then it’s the thought of losing you or your sister. These past few days must have been horrible for him. He deserves an explanation.”

She knows Jyn is right. Deep down.

“And you” she adds as an afterthought. She tries to think about Mamma, about how it feels for Jyn to be taking her place but it doesn’t feel like that-like how her friends would tell her if they had lost one parent and seen them move on with another-it doesn’t make her want to scream or cry. The whole thing makes her want to sleep away the past few months so that she doesn’t feel fear whenever her Papa was out of her sight even for a second.

Jyn smiles at her softly and Emmy while not an expect on love figures that, that soft look in Jyn’s eyes has to be worth something.

“Do you think he’ll stop being a soldier?” she asks quietly as they walk down the steps to the main door connecting the two ships. Jyn pauses. “Do you want him too?” she asks finally.

“No” Emmy says without so much as a second’s hesitation.

“Then he wont” Is all Jyn says.

Emmy nods as the door opens.

For once she is not afraid of what’s behind it.

 

 

 

 

 

Cassian 

He doesn’t know whether or not to cry. Lira is stood next to him hopping on one foot impatiently. Luke Skywalker is carried off and Cassian watches as Wedge practically throws himself to the side of the stretcher his face going an unnatural shade of white. They didn’t receive much intel only that Vader was at Bespin and nobody knew why.

The Princess comes of white to the teeth and her face as mask of pain. He notes that Solo does not follow though the Wookie and the droids do and then…

“Papa”

Gods it’s the sweetest sound he has ever heard, in fact it almost brings him to his knees.

Emmy comes running at him and while she’s in need of a hot bath, a good meal and a change of clothes Cassian can see no major injuries. She comes running at him and all but throws herself into his arms. Her elbow catches his ribs again but the pain is worth it. He closes his eyes feeling tears pricking against them and when he pulls back to kiss her hair he finds he is on his knees one arm wrapped around Lira and the three of them, him and his girls together again.

“I’m sorry” Emmy mutters into his shoulder. “I’m sorry but I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know if you were going to get off in time. I didn’t know if you were going to come back and I…I’m not strong enough to do it again”

At this point Cassian Andor didn’t think he had enough heart left to shatter but it shattered again.

“It’s alright sweet girl” he says even though it’s not. “I promise you I am never going to leave you again”

And he can promise that. He cannot leave the rebellion, he’s not stupid he’s a well-known figure since Scarif but he can promise his girls that there will be no more missions like Scarif, no more suicide missions where the good of the rebellion was all he was thinking off. From now on he will take part of the missions where there is a good chance he will survive or not at all. He doesn’t care if they call him a coward or not…his girls are the most important thing in the whole galaxy. Well…them and…Jyn Erso.

And speaking of Jyn where is she?

He turns to see her watching them with that soft sad look in her eyes and suddenly the urge to wrap his arms around her and never let her go-like he’d wanted to on Scarif-is unbelievable. He crosses the room and has her in his arms in seconds. Jyn seems to clutch back with the same kind of desperation and for a second it’s all he can think about.

He’s never felt this kind of love before he’s sure of it.

He felt companionship with Ara yes, desire definitely, a sense of loss when she was gone but not this.

He pulls back and he kisses her and Jyn forgets that they are in the middle of the headquarters of the Rebel Alliance and he was in front of his daughters and sure as the skies above Naboo are a perfect clear blue, kisses him back with all the strength she has in him.

He pulls away mainly because he needs air and also because they way that Jyn and he are curled around each other might be considered unfit for public consumption.

He pulls back and when the words come they come with a simple conviction and feeling that he has only felt twice in his life

“I love you”

Jyn stares at him for a second and then a different smile etches it’s way across her face. A gentler one, a more genuine one and she grins like they’ve just won the war. Perhaps in a way they have.

“I love you too”

So lost in this moment is he that he fails to overhear Lira mutter to his eldest, “Finally” and he fails to see Emmy’s solemn nod.

They will be time to talk later, about Darth Vader, Han Solo, about the city in the clouds and the asteroid field, about how his daughter was so terrified he was going to die that she came back for him. All of it can be addressed later.

Cassian is just beginning to appreciate just how beautiful the concept of later is. Later is his children and Jyn and a life outside of the war.

Later is what he almost died for on Scarif.

Later is being alive.

 

 

 

 

 

Emmy-A Month Later. 

Emmy is sat on a rock in the middle of the Endor forest. Lira is off somewhere dancing with Ewoks and probably trying to see if she can sneak a baby one back onto the ship.

All around her is celebration. Because finally they have won. The Emperor is dead, the Empire is dead, Luke Skywalker tells them with a sad twist to his smile, that Darth Vader is dead and then he links hands with Wedge-one of Papa’s friends-and mutters something about having to tell him something. Then they disappear.

Her Papa right now is twirling Jyn around. Emmy might have just turned nine but she can see the years have been stripped of her Papa and Jyn too. The thing they almost gave their lives for has happened. The Empire has been destroyed.

Finally they can live their life and Emmy wonders if they can move somewhere where the sky is blue and the people don’t hurry about their business and conversation doesn’t stop whenever a stormtrooper is near. She wonders if they can have a little house and she can friends that don’t know what it is like to lose a parent.

Lira climbs up next to her finally free of the dancing and singing. She sits next to her sister her little legs dangling of the edge of the rock. Emmy feels her heart swell with love for her little sister. She thinks now she understands why Papa almost died to give her and Lira a chance at a life free of darkness.

“Isn’t it wonderful Emmy?” Lira asks finally as they watch Jyn and Papa kiss again as they both laugh.

“Now we can be normal”

Emmy grins. “If we were normal Lira then that…” she points at her father and Jyn “Would have happened months ago”

Lira beams at her and Emmy grins back and they both watch their father embrace his new life…their new life and Emmy thinks as the sky is light with fireworks and the galaxy realises that it is finally free that they have more than earned it.

This is no small thing she thinks looking at her family…no small thing for them…normalcy.

She looks forward to living it.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is adored.
> 
> There is a slightly AU Sequel in the works as this story is now part of a series


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